Ninkasi Bier
Brauerei Locher AG

.33cl bottle poured into an An Brainblasta goblet in Belfort, France. Reviewed live.

A: One finger head of practically no cream, bad thickness, and average retention. Semitransparent light green-yellow colour. Very atypical.

Sm: Purely light barley with maybe some artificial lime esters.

T: Barley and off-lime esters on the climax. Simple. Crappily constructed, but balanced for what it is.

Mf: A bit syrupy, and far too thick for the lack of flavour. Coarse and wet, which doesn't suit the style or the beer.

Dr: Low ABV, garbage quality, artificial, and expensive. Definitely avoid this one.

Found at Drinks of the World in Zürich, and picked up because I have a soft spot for Ninkasi in Oregon, also names for the Sumerian goddess of beer. Unfortunately, it shares little with the great beers that come from there.

Pours a clear, light and very pale yellow colour, with a fine head of white that sits as an uninspired film on the top of the glass. Lacing is patchy. Looks like any standard, light bodied light beer.

Nose is really rank. Horrible wet yeast, rotting bread, mouldy and damp. It's organic, but in all the wrong ways. No hops, no grain, nothing. Urgh.

Taste is the same, horrible sweetness on the front, with a mid palate of stomach acid acidity. Finish is the worst bit: a horrible, continuing and unassailable bad yeast character, that sticks like herpes to the tongue. Almost makes me gag—it's truly horrible: really, really offensively bad.

Holy shit. This is truly one of the worst beers I've ever had. Whereas most lower alcohol beers just remove characters, this one manages to accentuate all the very worst aspects. It's undrinkable.

C'mon, Oregon Ninkasi, you Americans are a litigious bunch. Please sue the shit out of these guys so they remove this abomination from the market.